Educational planning process in Yemen: The Second Five-Year Plan, 1982-1986

This study has examined the educational planning process that was employed during Yemen's Second Five-Year Plan, 1982-1986. Special attention was given to determine how the goals of this plan were formulated, what specific efforts were made to accomplish these goals and to what extent they were achieved. Some questions were addressed: (1) Who were involved in formulating the goals in the Ministry of Education in the Yemen Arab Republic? (2) Were the goals of the Second Five-Year plan appropriate? (3) Were the means of accomplishing these goals appropriate? (4) What were the factors that promoted or impeded the implementation process of the Second Five-Year plan in the Ministry of Education? (5) What were the positive and negative effects of the Second Five-Year Plan goals? (6) Did the Second Five-Year Plan fulfill its goals?; Two groups of educational administrators participated in this study. Interviews were conducted with the upper-level administrators, including the Deputy Ministry of Education and the General Directors of Education. The questionnaire survey was used for the administrators of planning units and school principals.; The findings of the study were: the goals and the means to accomplish these goals of the Second Five-Year Plan were seen to be appropriate. The promoting factors were government support and the desire of the citizens for education. The impeding factors were insufficient finance and the earthquake which occurred during the plan. The positive effects were the expansion of education all over the country, emphasis on Yemeni teachers, and changing the curricula from Egyptian to Yemeni. A serious negative effect was that the plan stressed quantitative expansion rather than qualitative improvements in education. In general the participants answered that the plan did not reach its visionary goals. Ten recommendations were offered as a result of these findings.